At least two people have caught the coronavirus from mink in the Netherlands, in probably the first mink-to-human transmission cases. The risk of infection outside mink farms is "negligible," Dutch officials said.
Image: Getty Images/Y. Tutov
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The Dutch government on Monday said that it was "highly likely" that a person had been infected with the coronavirus by a mink, following a similar case last week.
Mink are bred for their fur at some 155 farms across the country. The authorities detected infected animals at four such locations, Agriculture Minister Carola Schouten said in a letter to parliament. At three out of four farms, a sick human was thought to be the source of the infection among the animals, while officials were still investigating the cause at the fourth one, the minister said.
Several mink farms in the Netherlands have noted human-to-mink transmission, the reverse is rarerImage: Getty Images/B. en Donk
The mink farms are set to close in 2023 due to a law passed before the coronavirus outbreak. Amid the latest developments, some veterinarians accused Schouten of trying to downplay the risk of the animal-to-human infection and pressured the government to clear out heavy-hit farms. However, Schouten has so far rejected the push. Addressing Dutch lawmakers on Monday, Schouten said the risk of humans getting infected outside farms was "negligible."
Dutch pets confirmed infected
Reports of humans infecting their animals, particularly cats and dogs, have appeared in various countries across the world since the beginning of the current pandemic. At least four house pets tested positive in the Netherlands last month. Minister Schouten has urged COVID-19 patients to "avoid contact with their animals."
However, the latest mink-to-human transmission was virtually unique, said the head of the country's health insitute, Jaap van Dissel, on Monday.
"This is the first time we've found, at least we've shown that it's likely, that in two cases the infection has gone from animal to human," he said. "Of course the original source of infection in China was also very likely animals," he added.
Dogs and cats can also be infected with coronavirus
Dogs and cats frequently become infected when their owners suffer from COVID-19. They oftentimes show symptoms, but the disease is usually mild.
Image: DW/F. Schmidt
Better keep your distance in case of COVID
That's how to do it: If humans have COVID-19, dogs had better cuddle with their stuffed animals. Researchers from Utrecht in the Netherlands took nasal swabs and blood samples from 48 cats and 54 dogs in 2021 whose owners had contracted COVID-19 in the last 200 days. Lo and behold, they found the virus in 17.4% of cases. Of the animals, 4.2% also showed symptoms.
Image: Fabian Schmidt/DW
Animals can get sick, too
About a quarter of the animals that had been infected were also sick. Although the course of the illness was mild in most of the animals, three were considered to be severe. Nevertheless, medical experts are not very concerned. They say pets do not play an important role in the pandemic. The biggest risk is human-to-human transmission.
Image: Fabian Schmidt
To pet, or not to pet?
The fact that cats can become infected with coronaviruses has been known since March 2020. At that time, the Veterinary Research Institute in Harbin, China, had shown for the first time that the novel coronavirus can replicate in cats. The house tigers can also pass on the virus to other felines, but not very easily, said veterinarian Hualan Chen at the time.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/K-W. Friedrich
Don't worry
But cat owners shouldn't panic. Felines quickly form antibodies to the virus, so they aren't contagious for very long. Anyone who is acutely ill with COVID-19 should temporarily restrict outdoor access for domestic cats. Healthy people should wash their hands thoroughly after petting strange animals.
Image: picture-alliance/imageBroker
Who's infecting whom?
Should this pet pig keep a safe distance from the dog when walking in Rome? That question may now also have to be reassessed. Pigs hardly come into question as carriers of the coronavirus, the Harbin veterinarians argued in 2020. But at that time they had also cleared dogs of suspicion. Does that still apply?
Image: Reuters/A. Lingria
When humans are a threat
Nadia, a four-year-old Malaysian tiger, was one of the first big cats to be detected with the virus in 2020 — at a New York zoo. "It is, to our knowledge, the first time a wild animal has contracted COVID-19 from a human," the zoo's chief veterinarian told National Geographic magazine.
Image: Reuters/WCS
COVID hits zoos again
In early December 2021, two hippos at Antwerp Zoo in Belgium tested positive for coronavirus. Both animals, mother Hermien and daughter Imani, had a cold. Otherwise, they were doing well. The zoo had to close temporarily and quarantine the hippos.
Image: alimdi/imago images
Have bats been wrongly accused?
It is thought that the virus originated in the wild. So far, bats are considered the most likely first carriers of SARS-CoV-2. However, veterinarians assume there must have been another species as an intermediate host between them and humans in Wuhan, China, in December 2019. Only which species this could be is unclear.
This racoon dog is a known carrier of the SARS viruses. German virologist Christian Drosten spoke about the species being a potential virus carrier. "Racoon dogs are trapped on a large scale in China or bred on farms for their fur," he said. For Drosten, the racoon dog is clearly the prime suspect.
Image: picture-alliance/ImageBroker/C. Krutz
Or perhaps this little suspect?
Pangolins are also under suspicion for transmitting the virus. Researchers from Hong Kong, China and Australia have detected a virus in a Malaysian Pangolin that shows stunning similarities to SARS-CoV-2.
Image: Reuters/Kham
Quarantine for ferrets
Hualan Chen also experimented with ferrets. The result: SARS-CoV-2 can multiply in the scratchy martens in the same way as in cats. Transmission between animals occurs as droplet infections. At the end of 2020, tens of thousands of martens had to be killed in various fur farms worldwide because the animals had become infected with SARS-CoV-2.
Experts have given the all-clear for people who handle poultry, such as this trader in Wuhan, China, where scientists believe the first case of the virus emerged in 2019. Humans have nothing to worry about, as chickens are practically immune to the SARS-CoV-2 virus, as are ducks and other bird species.
